Sitting There
by Danicakate
Summary: It starts off with Ziva sitting in her cell in Somalia. Want to know more? R&R I'm not good at summaries. Ziva/Tony during Ziva's recovery process. Will she recover? TIVA all the way! Originally a one-shot, but I guess I gotta expand now. After Ailyah
1. Chapter 1

Sitting there, her eyes unfocused, she could feel it; the dark, pressing on her, surrounding her from the inside, waiting, waiting, patient as the moon, unchanging as the sun.

'Ziva.'

She heard a voice. _His_ voice. She raised her head, slowly, painfully. He was there, standing in the corner. Walking towards her. Reaching out to her. But she didn't deserve it. She looked down again. She had hated him, left him. Forced the one man she fully respected to choose between them.

Hate. It was such a strong word, but it was how she had felt. In the weeks since Tel Aviv, she had softened, lessened. She was no longer who she was; months of torture had proved too much to bear as her former self. She had changed; no emotions, no words. She had said nothing, not since – not since –

She looked up again. He was gone. Just like last time. Just like every time before that. He wasn't real. She knew that now. And yet, every single time, deep down, she felt a glimmer of hope, strong at first, but growing weaker with each hallucination. Now, there was not a sparkle, not a gleam. A single, solitary, fading spark of hope inside her, growing dimmer as the darkness, the inner darkness grew nearer and nearer, surrounding, enclosing.

Gunfire sounded. He looked up. The guard was there, standing outside the doorway.

_Bang._

And he was there no longer. Walking to the door, he looked through the glass window. Another prisoner. Another female; bound to a chair, looking like hell. The same hair, the same skin. But the face.... It couldn't be her. No one could hurt her that much. No human could – but of course. These bastards were far from human.

The door opened. Looking up, she saw him. _Tony._ Coming through the door. Her door. He was going to – no. He wasn't real. He wasn't real. Hadn't she learned that by now? It was never him. The pain clawed at her insides; the darkness, pushing against her.

She had never fainted in her life. Not ever. But now, after weeks of starvation, with only the tiniest bit of water to keep her alive, the pain was too much. She couldn't stand it. And the living skeleton that was Ziva David fainted. It was a momentous occasion, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but the only one to witness it was too preoccupied to notice.

As he untied her, he was horrified. Not at her, but with himself. He didn't want to touch her. He was ashamed to admit it, but he had caused this. He had shot Michael, and driven her off. And now look at her. At death's door, filthy, beaten; and it was _his fault_. No, he didn't want to touch her.

On the plane back, Gibbs said nothing. He wasn't ready to talk. And when that happened, he wouldn't. Not a word would escape his lips. Ask the ex-wives. They could all attest. He wasn't one to wallow in pity, for self or otherwise; but a deep sense of guilt lay heavily upon him. Upon everyone. They could all feel it, the sense that they had failed her.

When Ziva woke, she glanced around; her eyes open only a fraction, hiding her consciousness from her captors. She was getting worse. Now they were all here, every one of them. She could almost smell them; Gibbs with his aroma of sawdust, McGee and his… _unique_ aftershave, Tony…

She had to stop this. She was going crazy. Davids did not go crazy. They remained strong till the very end, unto death.

Shutting her eyes again, she kept repeating, over and over. _I must stay strong. I must stay strong. I must stay strong._

Hours later, she opened her eyes. She would almost swear she was in Bethesda. Almost. But that was not possible. She was still in her cell, still in Somalia. Her mind was playing games with her.

She closed her eyes.

And opened them again. And there she was again. Tied to her chair, hungry, tired, and aching. The shaft of light that was her only indicator of time gleamed on the dust, she heat penetrating her very soul.

She was safe. Well, not safe; but not crazy.

Looking down at the scrawny figure on the bed, Anthony DiNozzo sighed. They didn't know if she would ever recover. Much damage, not just physical, but mental and emotional, had been done to her. Even of she woke, there was only a slim chance that she would ever fully recover. And it was all his fault.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: well, I was going to make this a one-shot, but then ideas came knocking, as they are apt to do. This one came as I was balancing on the razor edge between sleep and wakefulness, causing me to fall rather ungracefully back into the land of the living, and I was not able to climb back up for another hour or so.**

**BTW, I wasn't trying to pin the blame on Tony or Ziva individually, I am more trying to explore the inner workings of her mind, and the way Ziva thinks. This chapter is (hopefully) going to be about the way that Ziva reacts to something she doesn't believe is possible.**

Eyes opened. She was still there. It hadn't gone away. _It hadn't gone away!_ This was it. She'd gone crazy. She was well and truly beyond it. Looking around, she felt relieved… if you could call it that. He wasn't there. That was good. Maybe she was recovering. Maybe she would wake up to find herself still in that cell, beaten, bruised and aching. And the blood – the blood –

They had a special cell; one they only used for the extremely difficult prisoners. The Coffin.

A small cell, less than a metre deep, only just wide enough for her to stretch her arms a small way; not even long enough to lie flat. And dark. Such darkness that has never been seen. Not just the shadows caused by the absence of light; the very opposite of light. There was no way of knowing whether it was day or night, whether it was light or dark, wether there was any human life outside of her enclosure. Many times she had despaired. Even if, by some miracle, someone had come for her, they would have no way of finding her. But that was not the worst part. The darkness, the solitude, having zero chance of being found; that she could cope with; she had been trained to cope with. When she was training for Mossad, her father had locked her up in solitary confinement for days on end, preparing her for this eventuality. She could even put up with the cold; the searing, bone-aching cold that seeped into her, lodging in her. Go far enough underground, build a solid cement cell and place ice on top, and you have quite possibly the coldest place she'd had to put up with since going to America.

No, the worst part was the way _he_ was always there.

At first she had closed her eyes, shrinking from him. Later, as the cold became worse, she imagined him lying beside her, pressed up against her, keeping her warm. So real was this hallucination, that she no longer felt the cold; she could actually feel warmth radiating inside her. He helped keep her alive. Later still, when the solitude was clawing at her reason, he made wonderful conversation. Every movie quote she had ever heard him say came flowing out of his mouth. Once she got past that, all she had to do was close her eyes and imagine his face, and a warm glow would comfort her, relax her, keep her sane… to some extent. While she knew it was not healthy, she also knew that it was necessary.

After who knows how long, her captors realised that the Coffin was not working on her. They still fed her, every once in a while, and water dripped down a small crack in the roof, to the left of her head. As they dragged her out by her hair, she screamed. Not because of the pain; pain she could handle. But the light; the light from glaring electric bulbs, from the window, the torches. And the heat. After growing used to the cold, to the imagined glow of Tony, the heat was unbearable agony. Through her pain, she judged it to be soon after midday. The hottest part of the day. Siesta time, as Tony would put it. But no, the captors, her torturers, either did not know, or care. Out of her blissful solitude and into another cell; one with a barred window opening directly onto the sun. The heat, the light, it was killing her; but then there was shade again, coolness touching her skin. Looking up, squinting in the light, he was there, standing in front of the window, keeping her in the shade. He did not disappear, not until night had fallen, and by then, she did not need his protection. At least, not from the light.

Later, after she had lost count of the suns and moons, after innumerable beatings, she found she did need his protection after all. But he was not there. He did not come.

The door of her cell had opened, and the evil bastard and his filthy dogs of henchmen had come in. And she'd known. She'd known what they would do, but she was powerless to stop it. Months – it had to have been months by now – of malnutrition and inactivity had lessened her strength and stamina. She hadn't been able to stop them. She was like Dinah, she from Genesis, the daughter of Jacob; only Dinah had had vengeance. Her brothers had destroyed the city where she had been taken advantage of. No one cared for Ziva. Not her father, not her team. Not even Tony.

Hours later, as tears were still making tracks in the filth on her face, as she could feel them touching her, a hand on her arm, fingers in her hair, she heard something. And here was Tony, trying to make it better. She flinched away. She did not want to be touched. To die now, where no one would know of her shame, where no one could hurt her again; that was her wish. She knew she had no chance of getting out of there alive; she wasn't going to tell them about NCIS, and they weren't going to let her live. To her mind, that was a good thing. She wouldn't have to face Gibbs. She wouldn't have to face Ducky, McGee, palmer, Abby… she would have to face Tony. For all that his face and form appeared to her here, he was in Washington. He was probably flirting with her replacement right now.

When they came back, as they often did, to try and find information, she used him as a shield. She would close her eyes and drift, setting her spirit free; no longer caring for she could see him, see Jenny, see Abby, see her true family. But as she reached for them, she was jerked back to her body. Every single time, no matter how she tried, she was jerked back, never able to reach her destination.

He came. Day after day, he came as soon as work was finished. He didn't want to come, but he felt guilty if he didn't. He didn't want to see her like that, lying there. He didn't want to see the tube they'd put up her nose, to see the IV strapped to her arm. She'd put on weight since they'd rescued her, but she was still unbelievably scrawny. He'd seen the documentary, Memory of the Camps, the footage taken by the British soldiers liberating Nazi concentration camps. The people there, the Jews and political prisoners; she looked like one of them.

Most of the time she was mildly sedated. They didn't know what her condition if she – _when_ she woke up. She would wake up. He had to believe it. But even then, she would have to deal with her memories. She'd seen the scars, the cuts; her fingers were deformed from where they'd been broken and left. The doctors had re-broken them and set them; they had high hopes of the outcome. Physically, she would be fine in a couple of months. But mentally – mentally, no one could tell.

Ziva heard a sigh, and beeping. She opened her eyes. For the first time in these hallucinations, they didn't feel heavy. _Damn_. He was there. Again. She could see, hear and smell him. He was standing at the door, talking to a white coat, which she assumed was hiding a person. She could only see a corner of the coat through the curtain.

Ziva's brain wanted to go back to sleep; to ignore all this, but her nose was kicking up a fuss in the back of her brain. In the desert, when she could see, hear and touch Tony, she couldn't smell him. He had had no scent. That was how she could tell she was making it up. Well, apart from the obvious. He wouldn't have come for her in the first place, not after the way she had treated him.

But she could smell this Tony. And from where she lay, she could see new scars, one where her imaginary rescue-Tony had been cut. But her Tony from the cell, her protector; he didn't have those.

As her brain kicked up a gear, she began to self doubt. Either she was imagining that she was thinking that she was crazy, or she was imagining that she was imagining that she was thinking that she was crazy, or Tony really had rescued her, and the only craziness she had suffered was when her imaginary Tony from her cell had turned up when she didn't what him to.

That sort of thinking could drive a person crazy.

**A/N: So what did you think? Let me know!! Please! Abby hugs for all who review! Should I continue? Let me know!!! Ideas, suggestions, all appreciated.**

**Danicakate**


	3. Chapter 3

Grief. There had been so much in the last few months. She had been so happy; that made it all the worse. So happy with Michael. And then, right before he died, her heart had doubled, filled with joy. A child. A child of her very own. Hers; it was hers and no one could take it from her.

She had been lucky on the Damocles. When she said she was not hungry, no one thought anything of it. They had assumed she thought of Michael. Again in the fighting, though many were injured, killed, she was not one of them. Not a scratch marred her mocha skin. And then she had been captured.

Men were swine. She realised that, had known that for years. But this – this was unbearable. Starved, beaten; she thought she could take anything. She curled herself, protecting what was hers. Michael had no other children; could have no other children. And yet, he would not truly be gone if part of him lived on, would he? So she took the blows, the ones meant for her abdomen, on her head and neck. No matter how they aimed, she would move. But they figured it out. In sharp contrast to their looks and temperaments, they were smarter than swine. They understood. That had been the cause of her grief.

Once they knew, she had no hope. And yet, she still sobbed as she felt it; the warm, wet trickle, the heaving that killed the last remains of him. She screamed inside her head, knowing that they had found a way. They had taken it from her, that child she had never known, who would now never get to live. Her consolation: the unborn, those killed as children, as babes, were given a place in the eternal peace. The unborn cannot sin; therefore there was nothing from keeping her child from God, from Heaven. It was more than she could say for herself. After that, there was not much point in going on.

When she had been put in the Coffin, she didn't care. Not until he had come. That had brought her back.

Later, after she had been shamed beyond all belief, when death was welcome, she had been slightly concerned. She had stopped bleeding. But it happened. In times of extreme stress or severe malnutrition, monthlies could stop. And she was indeed under a lot of stress.

But later, later, as more and more time passed, she worried. But there was nothing she could do about it. And now, here she was, in a hallucination of her own making.

She rubbed her right ear. She couldn't out of properly, and it was driving her insane. It was like one of those dreams where you can't open your eyes. If you try really hard, they flutter, but you can never open them. Now, if she tried really hard, she could hear things, though they were muffled. But she couldn't hear clearly, no matter how hard she tried.

Oh, for a subconscious that she could get along with!


End file.
